Renowned civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax TV that Donald Trump is playing both sides of the fence with his threat to not accept the results of a presidential election he believes is "rigged."

"Donald Trump always has two messages," Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor emeritus, said Friday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."

"He said to the base, I'm not going to accept this election, I’m not going to accept it unless I win, I'm going to reserve my right to reject it because the media is rigged, because the election is rigged. He wasn’t talking to his base about trying to challenge the election."

But then, Dershowitz said, Trump and his political spin doctors cook up another scenario to tell the general public.

"He says, 'Hey, I'm just Al Gore, I'm just Richard Nixon back in 1960 challenging Texas and Florida for recounts.' There’s an enormous difference between not accepting the outcome of the election and engaging in legitimate challenges," Dershowitz said.

"Remember too that Bush vs. Gore was not Gore. Vs. Bush, it was Bush vs. Gore. It was Bush who brought the lawsuit to challenge the recount in Florida and to seek the end of the stay in the Supreme Court."

"If [Trump] had said, 'In the end, of course, I will accept the election, but I will challenge any improprieties, irregularities the way it was done in the past,' that would've been absolutely fine."

Renowned civil rights lawyer Alan Dershowitz tells Newsmax TV that Donald Trump is playing both sides of the fence with his threat to not accept the results of a presidential election he believes is "rigged."